• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

ASM #39 cgc 9.8 on the bay...

Started by g-man,

44 posts in this topic

VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted
That top edge, where's the overhang?

 

There doesn't have to be overhang. When books were published all pages were equally trimmed along with the cover at the same time. Overhang is a product of the aging of the book. The more fresh the book, the less overhang there is going to be on a SA Marvel.

 

 

??? So the cover expands?

 

Yes. Or the interior contracts. Not sure which it is.

 

Think about the grain of a piece of paper. You know how paper tears easily one way but turn it 90 degrees and it doesn't tear cleanly? That is the grain of the paper allowing it in one direction but not the other.

 

In the same way as lumber changes form as it dries (tree lumber has moisture trapped in the fibres as does paper), paper does as well. The grain of the paper determines which direction the shape changes.

 

As the paper dries, it changes size more one way than another because of the grain.

 

One thing I am quite certain of is that comics were trimmed on 3 edges (cover and interiors).

 

Another thing I am certain of is that as comics age, some covers are flush with interiors while others (of the exact same issue) seem to have overhang at top and bottom and seem a little short at the right (open) edge.

 

Did the interiors shrink or did the covers enlarge horizontally?

Did the interiors expand or did the cover shrink horizontally?

 

I don't know.

 

What I do know is that the freshest copies of any Silver Age Marvels that I have held seem to have the least amount of overhang, to the point that I thought they might be trimmed and yet they received a CGC blue label.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted
That top edge, where's the overhang?

 

There doesn't have to be overhang. When books were published all pages were equally trimmed along with the cover at the same time. Overhang is a product of the aging of the book. The more fresh the book, the less overhang there is going to be on a SA Marvel.

 

So every curator should have no overhang.

 

I'm not saying the curator books weren't fresh. I just know that there are some conditions that are able to prevent pages from changing size. It might have to do with ambient temperature, humidity, air, pressure or a combination of things.

 

Those books that I have seen without overhang were really fresh, white copies.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

You can read it but the proof is right on the comic books. The serrations and ridges on the edges of SA Marvels up to about 1966/67 line up on both the cover and the interiors. You don't need more proof than that.

 

All you need to do is read your comics.

 

:whistle:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sufunk

sufunk

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

Wait a minute!!!

 

You got rid of the gif with the hottest girl ive ever seen gyrating for that tired old fall in trying to push the dog in gif?!?!? (tsk)

 

You should get a weeks suspension minimum for that crime against the board!!! :baiting:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rodan57

rodan57

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

You can read it but the proof is right on the comic books. The serrations and ridges on the edges of SA Marvels up to about 1966/67 line up on both the cover and the interiors. You don't need more proof than that.

 

All you need to do is read your comics.

 

:whistle:

 

This would be my understanding based upon similar observations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

Wait a minute!!!

 

You got rid of the gif with the hottest girl ive ever seen gyrating for that tired old fall in trying to push the dog in gif?!?!? (tsk)

 

You should get a weeks suspension minimum for that crime against the board!!! :baiting:

 

Hmm...alright then, I just changed it to something that should be much more in line with your tastes. :foryou:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jeffro.

Jeffro.

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

You can read it but the proof is right on the comic books. The serrations and ridges on the edges of SA Marvels up to about 1966/67 line up on both the cover and the interiors. You don't need more proof than that.

 

All you need to do is read your comics.

 

:whistle:

 

I think you're putting us on. I'm calling BS on this until I get corroboration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
marvel_runs

marvel_runs

Posted
Posted

That 9.8 sure is a wonderful copy of ASM 39 - with white pages too!

 

Here's another question, I was looking over a random raw comic from my collection that has the distributors overspray at the top edge. The top edge of the interior pages of the comic have the ink stripe. But also, the inside of the overflash has the spray. It doesn't appear that the book shrank much, if any between the time the ink was applied and now.

 

If I understand the process correctly, books were put on the racks without the stripe and those that didn't sell got returned and that's the time the ink spray was applied - to indicate that the book was a return, and it was then sold at a discount. One hypothesis is that the interior pages shrank between the time the book was put on the rack and the time it was taken back - maybe a couple months. Which I would say is at least plausible.

 

Let's assume for a minute that the comics were printed, and cut together (all 3 edges) - and that the interior pages shrank more than the cover. One possible explanation would be that some books were printed on old rolls of paper that had sat around in a warehouse for a long time and had shrunk prior to them being printed and trimmed. Books printed from the Levi's rolls (pre-shrunk) wouldn't shrink after the time the books were trimmed and you would expect to see very little or no overflash.

 

Coversely, if the rolls the covers were printed from had sat around and dried out, then you would expect the interior to shrink even more than normal - resulting in larger than normal overflash.

 

All this, so far seems to make sense.

 

I have heard that furniture made from wood shrinks with age, but it is directional - either along the grain or perpendicular to the grain. I'm sure someone on the boards can chip in with that. Paper products don't have the cellular structure that wood does because they are processed (essentially shredded wood that has been reassembled). So if they were to shrink, one would expect it to do so uniformly in all directions.

 

I have seen lots of evidence that the right opening edge of a comic cover and the interior pages have the same chop marks that indicate that that edge was trimmed with the cover on - but I don't seem to remember seeing this on the top edges.

 

Also, I typically have observed the overflash on the top edge, but rarely (not never) on the bottom or right edge.

 

Is it possible that only the right edge, or the bottom and right edge of the comics were trimmed together and the top edge just kept whatever spare margin of comic cover was left over, somewhere in the ballpark of 1/16th of an inch, but dependent on exactly how tall the interior wraps were for that particular print run.

 

From my understanding of things, comics were printed on cheap paper, and the production of them wasn't done using the finest quality printing equipment. Many of us have seen that silver age comics come in different sizes, up to maybe a quarter inch difference in height, and we have all seen the right edge diagonal miscuts on multiple copies of some issues (Daredevil 7, ASM 25, JIM 22, etc.). Going along with the thrift theme, the fewer cuts you had to make to a comic, the less expensive it would be to manufacture. If you did one cut after printing, (just the right edge) - that would be cheapest. Two cuts would be a little more expensive and 3 cuts the most expensive. I'm in the camp of two cuts. Someone point me to a thread (if there is one yet) that explains this.

 

To me, it seems a more likely explanation that the equipment tolerances were out of whack on some books and most of the time, the roll of cover stock was just a tiny bit larger than the roll of interior paper, but on occasion, when the stars aligned (or the rolls came out of alignment), some books were just printed without much if any overflash.

 

And no, that's not my book. That's waaay out of my league. :)

 

If there's already a thread on the topic of printing tolerances, and someone can point me that way, please do and I can post some example scans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted

While I don't have a newspaper in front of me right now I seem to remember newsprint being manufactured with direction fibres. Trying to tear it in one direction is much more clean than trying to tear in in another direction at a 90 degree angle.

 

It tears in almost a perfectly straight line one way while it tries to go back and forth horizontally when trying to tear in the other (90 degree) direction.

 

At least it used to, anyway.

 

As far as overhang at the top but not at the bottom, there are several other factors that might be related.

 

For one, if it is exposure to the atmosphere that causes this change in paper size, then more often than not the top is more exposed than that bottom of a book. Comics were stacked vertically on newsstands, and are most often stacked vertically in long boxes, keeping the lower half of the comic less exposed and more pressed while keeping the top of the comic exposed to the open air.

 

Also, consider that when the books are stacked vertically, the interiors will droop at the top staple (or both staples) more, causing the interior to hang a little lower at the top so any overhang that might be at the top and the bottom will generally get displaced to the top because the interior sits at the same level as the cover in a vertically stacked comic.

 

That's not to decisively say that the comic was not trimmed on only 2 sides but so far it's still easier for me to believe that it was trimmed on 3 sides more than it was only trimmed on 2.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rodan57

rodan57

Posted
Posted

If I understand the process correctly, books were put on the racks without the stripe and those that didn't sell got returned and that's the time the ink spray was applied - to indicate that the book was a return, and it was then sold at a discount.

 

The ink was sprayed down the sides of bundled comics before delivery. The colour of the spray at the top of each book later indicated to the store owner when the books were to be taken off of the newsstand.

 

The top third of covers were cut off and returned to indicate a no-sale. Sometimes the remainders of these books were illegally sold at a discount. Later an honor system was put in place and greatly exploited.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
batman_fan

batman_fan

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

You can read it but the proof is right on the comic books. The serrations and ridges on the edges of SA Marvels up to about 1966/67 line up on both the cover and the interiors. You don't need more proof than that.

 

All you need to do is read your comics.

 

:whistle:

 

I think you're putting us on. I'm calling BS on this until I get corroboration.

 

I hate to say it, but I am going to have to go with Roy on this one :sorry:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
trmoore54

trmoore54

Posted
Posted
DiceX who used to work for printing plants that printed comics (Eastern Colour I believe) has already stated that Silver Age comics were printed by attaching covers to interiors by stapling them, then folding them and then trimming the edges to size.

 

Where'd Dice's thread go that explained all this? I thought it was stickied in either this forum or the grading forum, but I'm not seeing that. (shrug)

 

If I'm not mistaken (I think in the Restoration section) ze-man/Kenny had a thread along with pics that showed that covers and pages were cut at the same time...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
If I'm not mistaken (I think in the Restoration section) ze-man/Kenny had a thread along with pics that showed that covers and pages were cut at the same time...

 

That's vaguely my recollection as well--but you're right, I'm pretty sure that thread is indeed in the restoration forum. Curse the search function's new time limits--it makes finding a thread like this difficult. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing